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Summer in Sydney; Rock Pools

By RAYMOND BONNER

Published: February 24, 2008

NEARLY every day for 14 years, Denise Leith, a writer and university lecturer, has risen before dawn and headed to the beach at Newport, a pleasant, residential suburb 19 miles north of downtown Sydney, with fruit stands, pharmacies and small shops along the main road, within the sound and smell of the sea. She walks to the south end of the long beach and after donning her cap and goggles plunges into a 50-meter pool.

It is not your typical pool -- no lane markings, no chlorine and far from placid. It is a rock pool, built into the ocean; the surf crashes over the side as swimmers navigate their way through the salty water and must sometimes grab a chain railing to avoid being swept out to sea when the tide is high and the water particularly rough. Some days it is like swimming in a washing machine, Ms. Leith says, others like swimming in Champagne.

As she goes up and back, up and back, she gazes down on rocks, seaweed and dappled-sunlight sand. ''I swim with the fish,'' she said recently. ''For months we had a bluefish we swam with. There was an octopus living at the end of the pool.''

''It's more interesting than the ocean,'' she said. And, she is quick to add, she doesn't have to worry about sharks or riptides.

Rock pools, so-named because they have been hammered out of rocks at the ocean's edge, are one of Sydney's defining characteristics, along with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, though not as well known.

I began coming to Sydney every winter -- the Australian summer -- some 20 years ago and started taking swimming lessons, eventually replacing my 10-mile runs with a mile or so in the pool. But I always swam in a regular pool, never the open water. I loved the sound of the ocean, the breaking surf, the vastness, but still didn't feel terribly comfortable in it. (Those riptides can be killers, literally.)

Then I discovered the rock pools. I could have the sensation of swimming in salt water -- that churning surf -- but there was always the wall to touch at each end, where I'd flip and start back. I've gradually gained more confidence swimming for distance in the open sea, but I still return to the rock pools.

Just about every Sydney beach has one, usually at the southern end, to give swimmers some protection when the southerly winds bring cold air and big seas. Most have changing rooms and showers, and are free for swimmers. Serene at low tide, choppy at high, they are, in many ways, the original infinity pools.

Each pool has its own colorful history. Some were built by wealthy individuals in the 1800s, when Victorian-era morals banned daytime swimming at the beach, a concept hard to fathom in a country where going to the beach seems to be required. Some pools were built by convicts, others during the Depression. They come in all sizes and shapes, from 50 meters long (roughly 55 yards) and many lanes wide to much smaller boutique pools.

Sydney today has some 40 traditional public 50-meter pools (New York and Los Angeles each has two!), which may explain how swimmers from Australia, with a population around 20 million, were able to haul off 15 medals at the 2004 Olympics in Athens -- second only to the United States.

But it might be said that the beginning of Australians' love affair with swimming was at the rock pools.

In the first Olympics to have women's swimming -- Stockholm in 1912 -- an Australian, Mina Wylie, won the silver medal in the 100-meter freestyle behind Fanny Durack, another Australian. Mina was taught to swim in a rock pool built in 1907 by her father, himself a champion distance and underwater swimmer.

TODAY, Wylie's Baths, in Coogee, about six miles south of downtown Sydney, is one of the most popular rock pools in the area; it is open 365 days a year, and charges a small fee (www.wylies.com.au). As with most rock pools, it has its own club of locals, men and women of all ages who swim there regularly and compete on Sundays. Sometimes the surf is so fierce that the waves crash over the edge, making it almost impossible to maintain lane etiquette as competitors bump into each other. On the wooden deck, partly shaded, the most popular activity on a recent Sunday seemed to be parents' changing diapers.

A few hundred yards away, within sight, well, partially, is another venerable Sydney institution -- a pool for women and children. Built in the 1800s, it was long known as the '''nun's pool.'' Today, Muslim women in scarves are more often seen, along with pregnant women and older women. If a women-only public facility seems an incongruity in a country that prides itself on its egalitarianism, note that it has an official exemption from antidiscrimination laws.

Sydney's most famous beach is Bondi. At its southern end is Bondi Baths, an eight-lane, 50-meter saltwater pool built into the cliffs. Open every day except Thursdays, it is home to the Bondi Icebergs Club, which was founded in 1929 by a small group of friends.

To become an Icebergs member you must swim three of every four Sundays for five years during the winter (May to September Down Under). It is a true test of dedication, for while outsiders might think that Australia is the land of endless summer, in winter the ocean water is teeth-chattering cold. And on opening day of the winter swimming season, it is tradition that lumps of ice are tossed into the pool to test the hardiness of the competitors.